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Tarzan
Tarzan is a 1999 American animated adventure film produced b Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 37th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, it is based on the story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and is the first animated major motion picture version of the Tarzan story. Directed by Chris Buck and Kevin Lima with a screenplay by Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker, and Noni White, Tarzan features the voices of Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close and Rosie O'Donnell with Brian Blessed, Lance Henriksen, Wayne Knight and Nigel Hawthorne. Pre-production of Tarzan began in 1995 with Kevin Lima selected as director, being later joined by animator Chris Buck the same year. Following a first draft by Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker, Noni White and Dave Reynolds were brought in to re-construct the third act and add additional humor to the screenplay. English musician Phil Collins was recruited to compose and record songs which were integrated with a score by Mark Mancina. Meanwhile, the production team embarked on a research trip to Uganda and Kenya to study the gorillas. Animation for the film was done in California, Orlando, Florida and Paris with Deep Canvas, the pioneering computer animation software system, predominantly used to create three-dimensional backgrounds. Tarzan was released on June 18, 1999, to a positive reaction from critics who praised the film's animation and music. Against a production budget of 130 million dollars (then the most expensive animated film ever made until Disney's Treasure Planet (2002) which cost 140 million dollars,) the film grossed 448.2 million dollars worldwide becoming the fifth-highest film release in 1999, second-highest animation release of 1999 behind Toy Story 2 (1999), and the first Disney animated feature to open at first place at the North American box office since Pocahontas (1995). The film has led to many derived works, such as a Broadway adaptation, a television series The Legend of Tarzan and two direct-to-video follow-ups - the sequel Tarzan & Jane (2002) and the midquel Tarzan II (2005). Plot In the 1880s, an English couple and their infant son escape a burning ship, ending up on land near uncharted rainforests off the coast of Africa. The couple craft themselves a treehouse from their ship's wreckage, but are subsequently killed by Sabor, a rogue leopardess. Kala, a female mountain gorilla who recently lost her own child to Sabor, hears the cries of the orphaned human infant and finds him in the ruined treehouse. Though she is attacked by Sabor, Kala and the baby manage to escape. Kala takes the baby back to the gorilla troop to raise as her own, an act of which her mate, Kerchak, disapproves. Kala raises the human child, naming him Tarzan. Though he befriends other gorillas in the troop and other animals, including the young female gorilla named Terk and the paranoid male elephant called Tantor, Tarzan finds himself unable to keep up with them, so he takes great efforts to improve himself. As a young man, Tarzan is able to kill Sabor with his crude spear and protect the troop, gaining Kerchak's reluctant respect. The gorilla troop's peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of a team of human explores from England, consisting of Professor Porter, his daughter Jane, and their hunter-guide Clayton. Jane is accidentally separated from the group and chased by a pack of baboons. Tarzan saves her from the baboons. He recognizes that she is the same as he is: a human. Jane leads Tarzan back to the explores' camp, where both Porter and Clayton take great interest in him - the former in terms of scientific progress while the latter hoping to have Tarzan lead him to the gorillas so that he can capture them and return with them to England. Despite Kerchak's warning to be wary of the humans, Tarzan continues to return to the camp and be taught by Porter, Clayton and Jane to speak English and learn of the human world, and he and Jane begin to fall in love. However, they are having a hard time convincing Tarzan to lead him to the gorillas, due to Tarzan's fear for their safety from the threat of Kerchak. The explorers' returns to retrieve them. Jane asks Tarzan to return with them to England, but Tarzan in turn asks Jane to stay with him when Jane explains the unlikelihood of ever returning to Tarzan's home. Clayton convinces Tarzan that Jane will stay with him forever if he reveals the gorillas. Tarzan agrees and leads the party to the nesting grounds, while Terk and Tantor lure Kerchak away to avoid having him attack the humans. Porter and Jane are excited to mingle with the gorillas, but Kerchak returns and threatens to kill them. Tarzan is forced to hold Kerchak at bay while the humans escape, and decides to leave the troop himself, now humiliated by his actions. Kala takes Tarzan to the treehouse she found him in, shows him his true past, and tells him that she wants him to be happy whatever he decided. Tarzan puts on a suit that belonged to his father, signifying his decision to go to England. When Tarzan boards the ship with Jane and Porter the next day, they are ambushed by Clayton and his band of stowaway thugs and detained in the brig. Tarzan flees with the help of his friends, and he races back to the gorillas' home ground. Clayton mortally wounds Kerchak and then engages Tarzan in a fierce battle across the vine-covered trees. Although Tarzan spares his life, Clayton inadvertently lynches himself when he falls with a vine tangled around his neck. Kerchak, in his dying breath, finally accepts Tarzan as his own and names him as leader of the gorilla troop. The rest of the gorillas are freed after scaring away the rest of Clayton's men. The next day, as Porter and Jane prepare to leave on the ship, Tarzan reveals that he now plans to stay with the gorilla troop. As the ship leaves shore, Porter encourages his daughter to stay with the man she loves, and Jane jumps overboard to return to shore; Porter shortly follows her. The Porters reunite with Tarzan and his family and embark on their new life together. Cast * Tony Goldwyn as Tarzan * Alex D. Linz as Young Tarzan * Minnie Driver as Jane Porter * Glenn Close as Kala * Lance Henriksen as Kerchak * Brian Blessed as Clayton * Nigel Hawthorne as Professor Archimedes Q. Porter * Rosie O'Donnell as Terk * Wayne Knight as Tantor * Taylor Dempsey as Young Tantor * Additional voices: Jack Angel - Monkey, Sylvester, Joseph Ashton - Ape Boy, Bob Bergen - Baby Tarzan, Snipes, Crocodiles, Tarzan's Father, Hillary Brooks, Rodger Bumpass - Elephant #2, David, Lily Collins, Kat Cressida - Kala (grunting), Jim Cummings - Dennis, Aria Noelle Curzon - Little Ape, Jennifer Darling - Female Gorilla #2, Debi Derryberry - Various Monkeys, Patti Deutsch - Tantor's Mother, Paul Eiding - Larry, Francesca Falcone, Scott Martin Gershin, Sam Gifaldi - Baby Terk, Male Gorilla, Amy Gleason, Jackie Gonneau - Female Gorilla #3, Micah Hauptman, Jennifer L. Hughes, Grady Hutt, Adam Karpel, Theo Lebow, Brandon Lucas, Ricky Lucchese, Sherry Lynn - Female Gorilla #1, Danny Mann - Baby Baboon, Ilana Marks, Jason Marsden - Mungo, Mickie McGowan - Terk's Mother, Nils Montan, Brandon Pollard, Phil Proctor - Ship Captain, Elephant #1, Max, Scott Record - Tarzan (yelling), Michael A. Reagan, Ian Redford - Cornelius, Chris Sanders - Sailor, Hippos, Rhinos, Stephanie Sawyer - Various Gorillas, Laurie Schillinger - Gorilla Kids, Brianne Brozey - Young Tarzan (noises), Frank Simms - Kevin, Shane Sweet, Dominic Thiroux, Jamie Torcellini, Erik von Detten - Flynt, Crocodiles, Joe Whyte - Hamilton, Danielle Keaton, Darren T. Knaus, Michael Perl, Frank Welker - Sabor & Philip L. Clarke - Tantor's trumping vocal effects * Chorus: Beth Anderson, Billy Bodine, Blake McIver Ewing, Francesca Falcone, Michael Geiger, Amy Gleason, Debbie Hall, Jon Robert Hall, Sandie Hall, Tina Halvorson, Linda Harmon, Karen Harper, Luana Jackman, James W. Lively, Melissa MacKay, Donna Medine, Bobbi Page, Jessica Rotter, Laurie A. Schillinger, Susie Stevens-Logan & Tiffany Takara Songs * Two Worlds (performed by Phil Collins) * You'll Be in My Heart (vocals by Phil Collins and Glenn Close, arranged by Harry Gregson-Williams) * Son of Man (performed by Phil Collins) * Trashin' The Camp (vocals by Rosie O'Donnell) * Strangers Like Me (performed by Phil Collins) * Two Worlds Finale (performed by Phil Collins) * You Will Be in My Heart (end credits) (performed by Phil Collins) * Thashin' the Camp (performed by Phil Collins and *NSYNC) Differences between the film and the book * In the film, Tarzan's parents are shown escaping from a ship on fire about to sink. In the book, Tarzan's parents are abandoned in the jungle by mutineers of a boat, a brigantine named Fuwalda. * In the book, Tarzan was born months after his parents were abandoned in the jungle, while in the film, Tarzan had already been born before shipwreck. * In the book, John Clayton, father of Tarzan, built a cabin on land, not a house in a tree as in the film. * Although in the film, it was Sabor who killed Tarzan's parents, in the book, the mother died naturally while she slept, and Kerchak was killed by the father. * The son of Kala doesn't die assessinated by Sabor like in the film, but falls of a tree when releasing of its mother, that escaped of the fury of Kerchak. * In the film, Kerchak is shown as the couple of Kala and the adoptive father of Tarzan, but in reality, this is the place of Tublat, where as Kerchak is only in leader of the tribe. * In the film, Sabor is a leopard, but in the book is a lioness, the lion Numa's partner. The leopard in the book is called Sheeta, but it's a minor character. * In the film, Tantor is a paranoid elephant and somewhat clumsy, while in the book is an old and wise elephant, who spoke with young Tarzan at night. * The character of Terk doesn't exist in the book, but was based on the ape Terkoz, a gorilla son of Tublat, who kidnaps Jane, and Tarzan, in rescuing her, kills him. * The battle in Tarzan's clear against Sabor doesn't appear in the book. In reality it's the union of two scenes: The battle in the clearing in which Tarzan kills Tublat during the meeting of the Dum-Dum; and when Tarzan gives Sabor death by hanging it with a rope made by him. * In the book, Tarzan finds the hut of his parents since he was a child, while in the film, Kala teaches him when he is already an adult. In addition, thanks to the books that were in the hut, Tarzan learns to write in English for himself, although he doesn't know the sound of the words he writes. * In the book, Kala, the mother gorilla of Tarzan, dies when being attacked by an archer of a village of the forest. * In the film, Jane Porter is the first human Tarzan has contact with, but in the book, Tarzan had already met humans as he approached a village to steal arrows. * William Clayton is the guide of the Porter in the film, besides being a hunter with the purpose of kidapping the gorillas, but in the book, it's totally different: He is a respected English lord, heir to Greystoke, and great friend of the Porter, besides being Jane's fiancee during the second half of the book, and her husband in the second book. Nor did I attempt to kidnap the gorillas during the first book, and it never shows up as a bad person, except for the jealousy of the relationship between Tarzan and Jane. * The properties of Greystoke, of which John Clayton (Tarzan's father) was the owner, are the current property of William Clayton, who inherited them from his father, and this he inherited from his older brother disappearing in the jungle, so it follows that William Clayton is Tarzan's cousin. None of these relationships is shown in the film. * A very important person in the plot of the book is Paul D'Arnot, official of the French ship that went to pick up to the Porters at the end of its expedition. He also became a close friend of Tarzan when he was saved from being eaten by cannibals, and as a thank you took him to England, to find out who Tarzan really was, and then to United States, to look for Jane. In spite of its importance, this personage is omitted in the film. * Other characters omitted in the film are Samuel Philander, companion of Professor Porter; Esmeralda, maid of Jane; Tublat, Kala's couple; Michael the Black, leader of the revolt in the Fuwalda; Bolgani, gorilla leader of the enemy tribe of Kerchak; Mbonga and Kulonga, leader and son respectively, of the tribe of cannibals; Numa, the lion; and Charpentier, fellow officer of D'Arnot. * At the end of the film, Tarzan lives in the jungle with his tribe of gorillas and Jane, but in the book, Tarzan leaves the tribe when he grows up, to live on his own in the jungle, and later travels to France, England and United States, and Jane stays in United States married to William Clayton. Although in the following books, Tarzan returns to the jungle and Jane stays with him. * In the book, Tarzan ends up knowing his true identity as John Clayton Jr., legitimate heir to Greystoke, while in the film, it never hears of its origin, beyond seeing a portrait of his parents. International releases For information about international dubs and releases, Tarzan/International. Category:1999 films Category:1990s American animated films Category:American musical films Category:Films produced by Bonnie Arnold Category:Films directed by Kevin Lima Category:Films directed by Chris Buck Category:Film scores by Phil Collins Category:Film scores by Mark Mancina Category:Walt Disney Animation Studios films Category:Walt Disney Pictures Category:Walt Disney Feature Animation Category:DVD Category:VHS Category:THX